Monday, May 4, 2020

More Comments from Readers – Part VI

Here are more comments that we have received from readers of
this website blog:“If I have read your Book of Mormon
correctly, it seems there were more than one prophet in the days of Lehi. Why
more than one? You only have one today” Jesse B.Response: There are almost always more than one
prophet on the earth at one time. Currently, there are 15 men on the earth set
apart as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. What makes the President of the
Church unique is that he is the only man on earth who has authority to exercise
all the keys of the priesthood, even though those keys were given to him when
he was first ordained an apostle. However, today's organization of
prophets is much different than in Lehi's day. In the Old Testament
(Lehi’s time), there was no "President of the Church." The presiding
priesthood authority under the Mosaic Law was the high priest of the Aaronic
Priesthood (2 Kings. 22:8; Nehemiah. 3:1). Since the ecclesiastical institution
of the time was governed by the Aaronic Priesthood, these prophets (most of
whom had obtained the Melchizedek priesthood through personal righteousness)
were not ecclesiastical administrators in the same sense that they are today.
Rather, they received mandates from the Lord to perform specific prophetic
functions. The prophet Jonah is a good example; he was commanded of the
Lord to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh. Lehi was commanded to
prophecy to the Jews regarding their impending destruction and to call them to
repentance. Other Old Testament prophets were given special callings to
counsel the king in conjunction with their responsibility to cry repentance to
the people, such as Jeremiah in Lehi’s day (as well as Samuel, Nathan, and
Isaiah). They may have been the major prophets of their day but they were not
the administrative leaders of the religious organization under Mosaic Law.

“Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he
revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” Amos 3:7

It should always be
noted that the justice of God requires that he warn the people before they are
destroyed. Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the
prophets, and by all the seers, saying, “Turn ye from your evil ways” (2 Kings
17:13). In the case of the Babylonian captivity, the Lord sent several
prophets to warn the people. Lehi, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Nahum,
Urijah (Jer 26:20-23), Zephanaiah and Obadiah were probably all contemporaries,
and all but Obadiah and Nahum are known to have prophesied specifically about
the destruction of Jerusalem.Comment #2: “Where is your narrow neck of land?”Response: Because of the very
makeup of the western Andean area, between the mountains and the sea being a
narrow strip in the south and much wider in the north, with the Gulf of
Guayaquil separating Ecuador and Peru, actually cutting off land movement and narrowing
it to an area about 25-30 miles between the gulf waters and the steep Andes
mountains, the nature of the land has always been considered divided in these
two large areas. In the Book of Mormon Land of Promise, we find that they are
referred to as the Land Northward and the Land Southward. The
native civilizations were most developed in the Andean region, where they are
roughly divided into Northern Andes civilizations of present- day Colombian and
Ecuador, and the Southern Andes civilizations of present- day Peru, Bolivia and
Chile.

Even today, with the Andes up all along the
eastern edge of the western shelf, the inhabitants consider south America
divided in two halves, Ecuador and Colombia, and Peru, western Bolivia, and
Chile

Comment
#3: “I read a paper from one of the professors at BYU named
Clark who said he was convinced that the reference to a north and a south sea
was ‘devoid of any concrete geographical content’ (his words), and claims that
all specific references to seas in the Book of Mormon are only to a west and
east sea. He also feels any model, such as yours, that shows a north and south
sea is doomed to fail”
Pete A.Response:
John E. Clark is a professor of archaeology in the department of anthropology
at the “Y,” where he received both is B.S. and M.A., though obtaining his PhD
at Michigan. He wrote in his book: The Book of Mormon and Archaeology, New World Archaeological Foundation, BYU, May 25, 2004) in
addition to your comment, that “…we
cannot dismiss the reference to these seas out of hand. If they are metaphorical, what was the
metaphor? (p 65). As
a Mesoamericanist, specializing in the Olmec culture, it is only reasonable for
him to try and eliminate, downplay, or put in question a north and south sea,
since Mesoamerica only has an east and west sea. He also wrote: “Conceptually, beyond each wilderness lay a
sea, south, north, west, and east. Thus
the land was conceived as surrounded by seas, or floating on one large sea”
(p 65), though we do not agree with his “conceptual” comment, as though Jacob
did not know what he was talking about, or Nephi either who wrote it down, that
the Land of Promise was an island (2 Nephi 10:20), which fits his picture quite
well. Mormon also understood this when he talked about the Nephites expanding
from sea to sea (Helaman 3:8). This
is not the first time we have disagreed with Clark regarding the scriptural
record, and it is not likely to be the last. However, unlike many theorists,
especially those of Mesoamerica, we stand behind and support totally the scriptural
record without trying to alter, change, or relegate it to a meaningless
question. Unlike Clark, we do not look at the scriptural descriptions as
metaphors, i.e., not literally applicable. Nor is there any reason to believe
such writing is metaphorical in any way.Comment #4: “1) To clarify, are you saying that the
entire Andes mountain range (and the country of Brazil) rose out of the water
in three hours? (3 Nephi 8:19) At most there was only three days of changes to
the land before the earth did cease to tremble, and the
rocks did cease to rend (3 Nephi 10:9) No other changes to the land were
significant enough to report, so I'm assuming that's what you are saying” Tyrus
C.

The flat Amazon Basin that was raised up
during the Andes uplift, which occurred at the time of the crucifixion

Response: When a
tectonic plate subducts under another tectonic plate, the earth’s surface
changes dramatically. In most cases, this is merely a long-term event and those
changes occur so slowly, other than an initial earthquake, tsunami, etc., which
hits suddenly, sometimes catastrophically, but always in a few hours or a day
or two and its gone and the aftermath forgotten (except by those hit by it all
and the record keepers); however, when
the Lord’s hand is involved (“darkness should cover the face of the whole earth
for the space of three days” Helaman 14:27) then the time frame is very quick
by comparison (earth was divided in the days of Peleg) and the events can be
quite noticeable (mountains rising from valleys “whose height is great” Helaman
14:23). Those mountains went
up quickly, suddenly, and very noticeably, otherwise, the Lord’s prophecy through
Samuel the Lamanite would be meaningless (“these wonders should come to pass
upon all the face of this land, to the intent that there should be no cause for
unbelief among the children of men—and this to the intent that whosoever will
believe might be saved, and that whosoever will not believe, a righteous
judgment might come upon them” Helaman 14:28-29)Comment #5 “I find it interesting that Hugh Nibley says in his collected works
“Remember, Mosiah had to move out. There is no revelation, no prophecy. The
lights went out, and it was time to move on.” What exactly does he mean by
that?” Cindy M.Response: Unfortunately, we
cannot ask him. Nor can I say what he meant. Obviously, he was talking about
Mosiah moving out of the city of Nephi. However, regarding their being no
revelation or no prophecy, we read in Omni that Amaleki, an eye witness to
these events, wrote: “Behold, I will speak unto you somewhat concerning Mosiah,
who was made king over the land of Zarahemla; for behold, he being warned of the Lord that he should flee out of the land of Nephi, and as
many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the
land with him, into the wilderness—And it came to pass that he did according as
the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the
wilderness, as many as would hearken unto
the voice of the Lord; and they were led
by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led
by the power of his arm, through the wilderness, until they came down into
the land which is called the land of Zarahemla” (Omni 1:12-13). That all sounds like a lot of
prophesying and preaching and revelation. What Nibley meant by this
appears to be unknown. However, you might want to keep in mind when reading
Nibley, that most of his published works are a compilation of brief, previously
written articles, and when put together in one format, often sound disjointed
because they were not originally written as a single article.

The Brazilian Plateau such as the Guiana Shield and the Brazilian Shield has an uneven terrain with an average elevation of 3,281 feet. The basin itself, which is almost the entire area of the Brazilian drainage basin, is made up primarily of sedimentary basins, the largest of which is drained by the Amazon and its tributaries. This total territory averages less elevation than 656 feet in elevation, most of which 41% today is swamp land and bogs.